Atiku, Obi’s claims on iREV fraudulent – FG
The Nigerian Government has said that opposition candidates’s claims about INEC iREV portal is spurious while insisting the February presidential poll was credible.
Two of the opposition candidates – Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi – have faulted INEC for its failure to upload election results to its IREV portal in real time.
The candidates alleged INEC compromised the polls to favour the ruling party.
Stating the government’s position in a latest release, minister of information Lai Mohammed said that the opposition’s claims are a “fraud”.
“It’s an act of blackmail and deceit by desperate individuals, ” Mohammed stated in the government release. Speaking specifically on the second runner-up Peter Obi, Mohammed said: “The opposition Labour Party would go down in history books as the first ever distant third-place finisher in a presidential election anywhere to have bold-facedly claimed victory. ”
The minister said that President Buhari deserves “accolades for delivering undoubtedly the best election in Nigeria’s history”, rather than being vilified by the “shameless sore losers.”
Mohammed added that President Buhari’s statement that the “over-confidence” by opposition candidates led to their defeat was “incontrovertible.”
“President Muhammadu Buhari lived up to his billing by delivering a free, fair and credible election, and his legacy is assured. The President would rather lose his state and many of his party’s strongholds than tamper with the fidelity of the election, and that is why he provided a level playing field for all parties,” he said. The minister added that none of the other candidates met the constitutional requirements to be declared a winner in the presidential poll.
(READ ALSO … Peter Obi owns up to scandalous phone talk with Oyedepo)
Nigeria held its presidential poll on February 25, with the electoral umpire declaring ruling party’s candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner.
He is expected to be sworn in on May 29, succeeding President Buhari whose tenure is widely viewed as less-than-steller and underperformed.
